1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an interface apparatus which is preferably applied to, for example, an SCSI interface or the like and, more particularly, to an interface apparatus to which a plurality of information processing apparatuses are connected and mutual information transmission and reception and connecting relations are switched.
2. Related Background Art
Hitherto, up to eight apparatuses each having an SCSI interface can be connected to an SCSI bus. Generally, one initiator (master) and up to seven targets (slaves) are connected and the targets execute processing operations on the basis of a command of the initiator.
However, in the case where a plurality of apparatuses serving as initiators exist on one SCSI bus and share one target (copy apparatus here) as in the case where, for example, as shown in FIG. 11, a plurality of host computers (hereinafter, referred to as hosts) 21 and 22 and a peripheral apparatus 23 such as a copy apparatus, a printer or the like are connected to the SCSI bus in the above conventional example and the copy apparatus 23 is shared and used from the plurality of hosts 21 and 22, there are the following problems.
In many cases, the host is designed so as to exclusively use the peripheral apparatus. There is a situation such that the host issues a reserve command to the peripheral apparatus and does not release. When one host reserves the peripheral apparatus, there occurs a problem such that even if the other host tries to access to the peripheral apparatus, a "reservation conflict" status is merely returned and the peripheral apparatus cannot be used.